Steve keeping a safe distance from Clinton and the double neck. Photo by Francisco Montes used by permission from the Houston Press
Knights in Satan’s Service Show Recap
You know how things go, we play a show then a geological era later we post about it. Well, this is no different. Last Saturday we played the record release for the Knights in Satan’s Service record release at Fitzgerald’s. I’ll admit I was kind of dreading the show because I was doing a lot of physical activity that afternoon so I was expecting to be utterly destroyed by the time we got there but a good 30 minute cat nap on the floor of the green room and I was good as gold. Then, to make the evening appear even more promising, the guy who billed himself as the trash guy (he was in charge of the trash detail I guess), came in and ,upon seeing sad beerless cooler, proclaimed it unacceptable then dutifully promised to see it filled with the finest in canned bumy juice he could gather (which ended up being Lone Star). (Last time we played there we had to go procure our own beer which seemed oh so unbecoming so this was a step-up for us.) Now rested and beered-up is pretty solid but toss in the Hell City Kings appearing and having Bill Fool take the green room “stage” to go off on a million insane stories that would make even Keith Richards’ eras prick up (and will not to be repeated here) pretty much sealed the deal that it was going to be a great night.
I got to see a little bit of opening band Jody Seabody and the Whirls’ set before our set and it was pretty cool high energy stuff. No too much of it though as we had to prep for our set and I have to say that I came away pretty happy with the set. Some small flubs here of course – Steve’s bass cut out during “She Bad, She Thowed” for example – but overall a pretty good one and we got a lot of compliments from folks we’d never seen before so I guess I can chalk that up as a good evening for us. The other bands were pretty cool too. The aforementioned Hell City Kings played a great set. It was cool to see Christian Best back in the band (albeit this time behind a bass) while Bill Fool took the role of front man with great aplomb. The Freakouts won the gear wars with a wall of single cabinet double stacks reaching from end to end of the stage. Surprisingly not as loud as you’d expect but damn, did they look cool and they played a pretty awesome set to back it up too! Ex-optimists put on a fun set downstairs and their shoe gaze take on “God Gave Rock and Roll” was pretty mind blowin’.
Last up was Funeral Horse who simply killed it. Now here is a funny thing about FH. A long long while back I first saw the band over at Rudz. At that time, the bassist who was playing had been there for a mere week and the drummer was at best passable. In short, the deck was stacked against them. It was just felt like a show where a band was just trying to get through it while the brains of the band, Walter Carlos, nervously tossed off jokes that fell flat the entire night. No doubt a bad night for the band but here is the thing – despite that experience, all I’d heard was how awesome the band was live which ran completely against what I saw that night. In the meantime, their album came out (which was pretty solid) but the backwash of that night still kind of sat there in the back of my throat so I was kind of hesitant about what to expect this evening despite all the good word of mouth. Well, this show seemed to firmly place that Rudz show as an anomaly – a product of a band leader in search of a band to lead. In the months since then, not only has Walter found a backing band that can follow him on his most insane flights of fancy but those two cats aren’t shy of leading the charge when necessary. The result was a fun and ass whoopin’ set – a real hoot to see a band click so beautifully with the right personnel. So kudos guys on delivering the set of the evening.
Right! So, Show Pictures, eh?! OK, here you are. The ones in black and white here are used by courteous permission of Houston Press whose Francisco Montes stood behind the lens (jump to this link for more pics of the show). The color pics are from our good pal, Luis Black.
Meanwhile – 7″ update
Here is how every one of our vinyl releases go.
- Ramon gets everyone to agree on a release date (assuming that if the band doesn’t set one, nothing will ever get done) which sets the ball in motion.
- Eventually, things are mailed to the pressing plant and/or the cutters.
- Clinton will soon become the band Cassandra and begin to spout prophecies of incompetency fueled doom from the temple of Apollo.
- Ramon then counters by painting the release schedule as no problem because faeries and magical woodland creatures are hard at work making sure that never will a Linus project come in late.
- The matter and anti-matter nature of this will eventually evolve into a beer soaked screaming match that will lead the digital prophet Charlie to exclaim “Good God, man. WHY do we do this to ourselves … EVERY … TIME? Why are we releasing vinyl? It’s expensive, it a pain in the ass, and it, at best, breaks even! Why? Why? Why?”
- The record then appears on time for the record release a mere 5 minutes before the record release show starts. The records look fantastic and everyone is thrilled. Clinton thinks to himself, “We got lucky, this time!” while Ramon goes off to thank the faeries and magical woodland creatures for not letting the band down. Meanwhile Charlie, realizing that this is just another LP4 Pralaya in an endlessly repeating cycle of goofiness, shakes his head.
Right now we are in between the fifth and sixth LP4 Yuga. Last week Aardvark said they sent out the stampers to A&R in Dallas and this week A&R told us they received the stampers and would have test pressings ready for us some time next week. If the test pressings comes in a dud, we will fall back to number three in the LP4 vinyl cycle but if they check out next week, we should be in good shape for October’s release. So here’s crossing our fingers that the faeries and magical woodland creatures are on the job.
Oh and a small side note…
I often hit up Two Guys Pizzeria. They make some good pies and the owner, funny enough, is actually a fan of our music. Well, the other day I was talking to him while ordering some slices and he mentioned that his daughter really liked “The Road.” I mentioned how funny that is given we don’t play songs from that EP live because they are kind of an anomaly and they are also outside my vocal range. But still, it was nice to hear that, despite the low key nature of and the unusually specific audience intended for that release, that it made some connection with someone out there. So, not a big deal but just kind of, “Oh, that’s neat.” kind of thing.
OK, Until next time folks,
Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World
